City Council Candidate Responses
District 20
1. Please briefly share your background and note any experiences you may have in engaging older adults, whether professionally or personally, and in connecting with the non-profit sector.
Dao Yin
Born and raised in China, I am a first-generation immigrant to the United States. When I first moved to the United States in 1998, I immediately chose Queens as my home. I have been a Community Activist in Queens for nearly two decades. As a community leader, I have worked tirelessly to set up local and online-based businesses and bring jobs to my friends and neighbors in Queens. Since 2005, I have been the Secretary-General of the Shanghai Association of America, and I have served as the Executive Vice President of the Queens Residents and Voters Coalition since 2018. I believe that I am uniquely prepared to lead this City and represent Queens given my experience as a corporate controller in a variety of industries and my routine work on budgeting, finance, accounting, and IT management. As a former Executive General Manager of a robotics company, I also worked for a variety of other businesses in the United States, Japan, and China throughout my career. I have degrees in library and information science, political science, and business computer information systems. I am a proven and effective thought leader on the economy and workers’ rights. During my time working for businesses around the globe, I partnered with corporations and small businesses alike to advance the workforce by creating and implementing retraining opportunities and apprenticeships. My experience in the fields of finance, technology, and accounting have enabled me to balance budgets while improving the lives of colleagues and still helping businesses make a profit. Since coming to this country, I have resided in Queens for about 25 years with my wife Haruka, and our daughter Isabel and son Derek, as well as our family dog, Logan.
John Choe
During the pandemic, I initiated a number of mutual aid projects to support our small business owners and local residents. We fundraised and recruited volunteers to support the work of La Jornada food pantry, which has been feeding 10,000 to 15,000 people every week in our community. We also began working with the Queens YWCA to deliver emergency food assistance to homebound individuals, many of whom are limited-English speaking senior citizens who came to this country from war-torn homelands -- only to suffer from catastrophic failures in healthcare, housing, economic and food distribution systems. In November, we found an elderly Asian American who had passed away overnight in a cardboard box with his shoes neatly placed outside. In the richest city in the richest country in the world, it is unacceptable that we allow our senior citizens to die alone on our streets. As the next Council Member to represent District 20, I will not allow this to happen on my watch.
I am a community organizer, fighting for social justice, economic opportunity and equality to ensure working families and small business owners have a voice and a stake in the future of our City and Nation. I am an immigrant rights activist, building coalitions of solidarity and mutual respect to protect neighbors, workers, and members of other faiths against bigotry and abuse. I am a proud union member, mobilizing fellow adjunct professors to stop disastrous cuts to CUNY, public schools, hospitals, and other critical City services while law enforcement budgets continue to bloom unchecked and fellow New Yorkers languish in jails, prisons, and detention centers. If we are to survive the multiple crises -- the pandemic, the loss of economic opportunity, the ascendancy of white supremacy, climate change, etc -- and ensure future prosperity for all, we must envision a City, State and Nation based on respect for the dignity of workers, immigrants, people of color and our natural environment. We, the inheritors of the Flushing Remonstrance, must live up to our heritage as leaders in America’s struggle for freedom and justice. We, immigrants and children of immigrants and kidnapped slaves, must continue to welcome people from around the world, must be a beacon for those seeking justice and liberty for all, while restoring rights to the indigenous people displaced and killed when this land was colonized by Europeans. We must envision a human-centered City that prioritizes the needs of people (affordable housing, health, education, transit, liveable wage jobs and opportunities to connect, create, and share). We need to adopt new models like the “15-Minute City,” in which no resident needs to travel more than 15 minutes on foot or bike for work, school and essential services, including health care, groceries and recreation. Creating a 15-minute city might mean building a robust bike lane network and closing off streets to cars, installing new outposts of government offices, fresh food vendors and pharmacies, or expanding mixed-use zoning. A liveable, vibrant and sustainable city is the right of every New Yorker, no matter our background or neighborhood.During the pandemic, I initiated a number of mutual aid projects to support our small business owners and local residents. We fundraised and recruited volunteers to support the work of La Jornada food pantry, which has been feeding 10,000 to 15,000 people every week in our community. We also began working with the Queens YWCA to deliver emergency food assistance to homebound individuals, many of whom are limited-English speaking senior citizens who came to this country from war-torn homelands -- only to suffer from catastrophic failures in healthcare, housing, economic and food distribution systems. In November, we found an elderly Asian American who had passed away overnight in a cardboard box with his shoes neatly placed outside. In the richest city in the richest country in the world, it is unacceptable that we allow our senior citizens to die alone on our streets.
2. As we live longer and healthier lives, what are your priorities with respect to promoting equity across all ages in our City?
Dao Yin
Three of my core issues are particularly relevant to older New Yorkers.
First, we must ensure that our COVID recovery is thorough and complete. Vaccinations have prioritized seniors, but there is more to recovery than just vaccination. There are healthcare needs for those who contracted the disease and survived, continuing safe delivery of groceries and medications for those who need them, and making sure that these services, which have become normalized during the pandemic, are not prohibitively expensive. We need to create programs to educate our citizens on how to be safe, healthy, and to be prepared for the next health crisis so that it is not so devastating.
Second, we must ensure that older New Yorkers always have access to affordable housing. Some are lucky enough to have reliable rent-controlled apartments, but increasingly, old homes are renovated and exempted from control, and new buildings are not subject to it. New York is facing a housing crisis. Even though plenty of new housing has been built over the last two decades, it has mostly been for the upper class and the super-rich. I will ensure that the city mandates more affordable housing. No senior should have to worry about where they are going to live, and if they can afford it.
Third, I am the only candidate in this race focusing on a platform of public safety. Our residents must always be safe. I want to work with community leaders to ensure that we know all of the safety issues facing our residents, and task the NYPD with addressing those specific issues. I do not want to reduce the scope of the NYPD or "defund" it, as some activists are calling for, but I want to focus our police on keeping our residents safe.
John Choe
District 20 has one of the highest concentrations of senior citizens in New York. Unfortunately, our government has done little to address their needs for banking, healthcare, or housing. I support the establishment of a public bank that will allow people of all ages to save their income, earn interest, and borrow money to purchase a home, start a business, or invest in higher learning. I also support the transformation of our healthcare system from one that caters to the needs of the wealthiest households to one that supports the basic needs of all people through a universal Medicare for All approach. In addition, I support shifting resources to building social housing for low and moderate income families with wrap-around services (healthcare, job training, social services) that creates stable neighborhoods where people can age in place.
3. Do you support increasing the budget for the Department for the Aging (DFTA), which funds programs such as Senior Centers, NORCs, home-delivered meals, and more? Please give rationale for your response and specify any specific funding changes you are most committed to achieving.
Dao Yin
Yes, I strongly support increasing this program. The pandemic has demonstrated to us just how crucial these services are. They should continue to be available and expanded so that everyone who needs them has access. We should not forget the things that this last year has taught us, and we should normalize these sorts of home care.
John Choe
YES
4. Do you support implementing a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increase for city-contracted human service workers and the full implementation of the Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) initiative for non-profits? Please explain your response.
Dao Yin
Yes, these initiatives are an excellent step in making sure that New Yorkers get the services they need. Human services should be well-funded and well-implemented. The city should support these non-profits and implement the necessary services in areas they cannot cover.
John Choe
YES. Without a COLA increase and full implementation of the Indirect Cost Rate initiative, wages lag inflation. Many of the human service workers providing care to senior citizens are immigrant women paid scandalously low wages they can barely live on. That’s not fair to them, and makes it hard for agencies to attract enough caregivers with the skills and devotion our seniors need.
5. Given that many older New Yorkers rely on limited fixed incomes and would prefer to age in community, rather than entering costly nursing homes, how will you address the need for affordable senior housing with services for a growing older population? How will you evaluate/respond to affordable senior housing proposals during ULURP?
Dao Yin
As I mentioned above, increasing the requirements for affordable housing is one of my highest priorities. I want to reclaim housing development from the large firms that have filled our city with luxury apartments that the super-wealthy buy up and only live in part time. That cannot be the focus of development in our city. We must build for the communities who are already here, especially those who have been here the longest.
John Choe
More seniors could live at home, if the City helped finance simple safety features like grab bars in showers. We also need to create much more affordable housing, for seniors and the general population. As a Council Member, I would demand a moratorium on all new luxury development in District 20, and would work with other Council Members to impose a similar moratorium citywide, until we overhaul ULURP to create a community-centered, comprehensive planning centered on creating affordable housing within sustainable communities.
To increase the supply of affordable housing, the City should:
Change the zoning code to limit or roll-back restrictive “single-family” zoning and allow “auxiliary” housing on these lots, which could generate an additional 200,000 new housing units at the low end of the market, dispersed around the city. That is 100 times the number of units the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) program has produced. This would also allow many senior citizens who own their homes to derive income from renting out part of their homes.
Stop relying on market mechanisms (such as MIH) and promises of “trickle-down effect,” and instead establish its own affordable housing construction program, The NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) should identify and secure vacant land, under-utilized properties, including hotels currently used to house shelter residents during the pandemic, for potential affordable housing construction sites or conversion to single-room occupancy units for low-income New Yorkers. Some of these units should be permanent supportive housing with wrap-around services (healthcare, social services, job training, etc).
Create new funding streams to build permanent supportive housing. One potential revenue source is to establish a fifth property tax class for vacant and speculative properties, allowing the City to increase the tax on the value of under-utilized land. We should also prioritize savings from a “no new jails” policy by shifting the $11 billion in capital funds budgeted for building new borough-based jails to build affordable housing.
End RAD and instead invest in NYCHA. I support the federal Green New Deal for public housing, which would direct $180 billion over ten years to rehabilitating NYCHA buildings, providing them with green roofs and solar power, and training residents. I would also support a similar city bill.
Stop providing tax subsidies to developers, as the state’s 421-A program does.
Strengthen tenant rights -- preserving existing rent-stabilized units is critical to maintaining the City’s pool of affordable housing. We must expand legal protections and fund legal assistance for tenants facing landlord harassment and unfair eviction.
6. While many older adults wish to be connected, many lack the financial resources or training necessary to fully access technology, exacerbating the digital divide. How would you encourage the City to address this?
Dao Yin
One of the most valuable parts of our communities are our public libraries. These can be ideal locations to foster technology training for older adults. I will propose programs to hold training sessions and provide resources for our libraries.
John Choe
The City should fund more computers and computer classes in senior centers, other community centers and public libraries. The Queens Public Library system has done an excellent job in expanding its technology-based services, but this could be supplemented and distributed more widely. I also support creating a municipal broadband network that would provide low-cost connectivity to all city residents.
7. During COVID-19, Senior Centers continued to work remotely, offering services in new ways to ensure their clients’ needs were met. To date, providers have not been authorized to operate in-person, despite restaurants, movies, and other entities, which older adults could also attend, being open. Further, community-based organizations, in many cases, have not been leveraged in the new meal delivery system. What are ways that you feel the City should work with nonprofits and engage older adults in the event of a future emergency?
Dao Yin
It is unacceptable that these providers have been held back from offering this very needed care. They should not be overlooked by the city as we emerge from the COVID pandemic, including use of resources like expanded delivery systems.
John Choe
Many senior centers and other community centers have large kitchens that could have been used, like school kitchens, to prepare meals for home delivery or pick up when the centers were closed. Essentially, that would have expanded Meals on Wheels, using the centers’ own staff. Many seniors would feel less isolated, if they received such services from the staff they know. The city should do a more thorough inventory of facilities like these that could be used to deliver services locally in future emergencies.
Many senior centers should reopen now, at least to seniors who are vaccinated. We could start by offering vaccinations at senior centers, and taking mobile vaccination sites to people’s homes, particularly in senior housing buildings and naturally occurring retirement communities.
8. With 1 in 5 New Yorkers over the age of 60, what are the changes you would seek to make to create a more age-friendly district? Please consider addressing the physical infrastructure of your district (walkability, accessibility, etc.), health care access, safety net resources, and other district specific items of note.
Dao Yin
A key feature for my plans to improve infrastructure in our neighborhoods is to expand bus service. This includes more express and local busses, as well as improving accessibility. Busses can go where the subway cannot, and can be a vital tool for New Yorkers over 60 to get around. With a solid backbone of transportation, healthcare is more accessible. Safety and support are more accessible. The libraries for technology use programs are more accessible.
John Choe
District 20 needs safer, less congested streets: We’ve had 57 deaths and 7,000 injuries due to traffic violence in the last decade, as new construction has increased residential and business density. We need safer street design and to discourage private car use by ending the minimum parking requirements for new buildings and by making public transit a better alternative. I am a strong advocate for more frequent, reliable, and rapid bus service, a new bus depot in downtown Flushing, as well as ensuring full ADA access to the 7 train and LIRR stations. District 20 also needs more healthcare clinics to serve the growing number of people living in poverty, many of whom are senior citizens. I was infuriated when Community Board 7 declined to provide the necessary variance for parking requirements to a proposed health clinic that would have served 40,000 people a year.
9. In the event of a budget shortfall, how would you push for the City to close the gap? Are there agencies or programs you feel should or should not absorb cuts? Please be specific.
Dao Yin
As we recover from COVID and rebuild our way of life, we must prioritize those services and agencies that will help us in that task. Health services, transportation, small business assistance, all of these will be the building blocks of recovery. These elements must not be cut under any circumstances.
John Choe
The City’s public schools, public hospitals, senior centers, youth programs, parks and transit system should not absorb any cuts. While the federal and state government have recently increased spending in ways that reduce the City’s budget shortfal., there are other budget adjustments we can make to fund crucial existing programs and address other important needs, such as addressing the climate crisis.
I am committed to working with my colleagues to establish a citywide jail closure program that would close Rikers without building new borough-based jails. I believe this policy would reduce the trauma of incarceration and the immediate and long-term negative impact on incarcerated people’s ability to find housing and jobs.
A citywide jail closure policy would save us from spending $11 billion on building new borough-based jails, and could ultimately reduce the Department of Corrections budget by $1 billion a year. The money saved could help fund affordable housing, community-based mental health services, youth programs, and other services that would far more effectively reduce violent crime and theft.
In addition, we can reduce the NY Police Department substantially, while more effectively reducing crime, by adopting a Safe Communities framework that:
Shifts resources from a punitive policing and carceral system to a public investment model that increases access to education, transit, housing, and economic opportunities;
Expands programs like NYC Cure Violence, which looks at crime as a public health issue, engages local residents, and creates community-based anti-violence initiatives in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence; and,
Establishes a Justice Center in each district, modeled on the Harlem Justice Center, which offers programs and services focused on stable housing, neighborhood safety, re-entry services, addressing trauma, and engaging the next generation through youth programming. In District 20, I would replace the NYPD borough command at the old State Armory building on Northern Boulevard with a Flushing Justice Center.
We must also fundamentally restructure the NYPD. I am committed to working with my colleagues to:
Eliminate the units for Vice, Intelligence & Counterterrorism, Political Surveillance (subject to Handschu Authority). The Vice Enforcement Division, in particular, is rife with corruption and allegations of police misconduct, including sexual assault and rape of sex workers.
Shift emergency response to domestic violence and mental health crises to civilian responders, social workers and other trained counselors, from police officers who aren’t trained to handle these issues and often respond violently to people who need help.
Transfer the Transit & Transportation Unit back to DOT, the Housing Bureau back to NYCHA, and school safety responsibilities from the NYPD to the DOE. We must refocus school safety on violence interruption; overall all, we need fewer school safety officers and more guidance counselors, social workers and psychologists.
Finally, I would disband the New York City Economic Development Corp., a public agency controlled by the City’s financial and real estate industries, which use it to benefit themselves. I would transfer its economic assistance responsibilities to the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and its responsibilities for managing public assets to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. I would also decentralize SBS operations away from One Liberty Plaza in Manhattan to create neighborhood economic development centers in public libraries in every district (using the Workforce1 model). These neighborhood centers should be staffed by bilingual counselors who can help local residents enter the workforce or start their own businesses.
10. How should your constituents look to measure your success in achieving your responses outlined above?
Dao Yin
The last year has ravaged our communities. COVID has changed all of our lives. My highest efforts will be aimed at rebuilding what we have lost in the face of this pandemic. My constituents can judge my success by the recovery of our neighborhoods from COVID. I want to restore our businesses, ensure healthcare, improve our services, expand our infrastructure, and make sure that we will not be laid so low in the face of the next crisis.
John Choe
They should look at how many bills I sponsor or cosponsor, and how much I engage the community, advocacy groups and my colleagues in fighting for them. We won't win all our fights, but we can make measurable progress on some of them.
Part of my vision is to build a 15-Minute City, a geographic representation of the social justice and equity goals that I hope to achieve during my tenure as Council Member, in which every New Yorker would be able to access all our essential needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride (or wheelchair ride) of their homes: education, work, groceries, parks, recreation, community centers, etc. In addition to this geographic-time metric, my constituents should evaluate my success in terms of class sizes for their children in public schools, the number of units of housing affordable to them, the number of bilingual staff at the community board and other government agencies, bus speeds on Main Street, the number of residents who are food insecure, the number of residents who are unemployed or underemployed, the number of Vice Squad arrests in the 109th Precinct, public access points to the Flushing waterfront.